Language English Media type print ISBN 978-94-009-0621-1 Page count 231 Publisher Wolters Kluwer | Publication date 1990 Pages 231 Originally published 1990 Genre Science Country Netherlands | |
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Website Preview on Google Books Similar Social Theories of Risk, Joseph Fourier - 1768‑183, No nonsense guide to s, Cyberfutures: Culture and Politi | ||
Uncertainty and quality in science for policy is a book written in 1990 by Silvio Funtowicz and Jerome Ravetz. It explains the notational system NUSAP (Numeral, Unit, Spread, Assessment, Pedigree) and applies it to several examples from the environmental sciences. This work is considered foundational to the development of Post-normal science.
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This work written by the fathers of Post-normal science discusses the use of science for policy and its problems. The book emphasizes the need for craft skills with numbers – not only in statistics but also in cost-benefit analysis, and on the need of specific skills for policy-related research. It introduces for the first time NUSAP, a new notational system for the management of uncertainty and quality in quantitative information, and presents examples of its application to radiological hazards, the valuation of ecosystems, and to energy technologies. This work is one of the most quoted in the field of science and technology studies - see also Science, technology and society (STS), especially relation to the issue of ‘democratization of expertise’. For Carrozza (2015) and Gooday (2006) this work, together with Ravetz's Scientific knowledge and its social problems of 1971 constitutes the bedrock for the conceptualization Post- normal science in the first half of the 1990s.